Roads wash away in Lamar County from flooding
LAMAR COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Severe thunderstorms and heavy rains plagued North Mississippi and West Alabama – again – this past weekend.
In Lamar County, several areas were flooded, making some roads impassable.
Several roads are closed and washed away due to the flooding.
“It’s amazing how four hours can destroy 20 to 30 years’ worth of work. It’s very tough,” said Jeff Long, a County Commissioner.
Jeff Long is the County Commissioner for District Four in Lamar County.
He’s been working with other first responders since Saturday to fix some of the damaged roads.
“We went out late Saturday, probably around 10:30 or so. We started getting calls about roads being washed and different things, unsafe conditions,” said Long.
Long said there are 25 to 30 miles of severe damage in his district.
“Some pretty big washes in the road where you can’t get across. Makes them impassable. A lot of pipes were exposed because they couldn’t handle the amount of water, so they washed around them. A lot of our ditches got filled in with an excessive amount of water, so it jumped our roads and started cutting into our roads,” said Long.
Some water lines were also damaged, leaving some residents without water.
Utility companies were out on Monday, June 16, working to fix the pipes.
Long said it will take up to three weeks to make the roads passable.
“We’re just trying to do what we can with the budget that we have since we don’t have any extra federal funding or state help right now. And we may get some, but a lot of times that’s after the fact. And it can’t help us when people are in the middle of needing to get back and forth to their homes and to their businesses,” said Long.
Water reached up to three feet on Highway 96, overtaking the guardrails.
Long said some damaged areas can cost up to $20,000 each to fix.
